Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Op-eds
  • Videos
  • Learning Styles FAQ
  • Daniel Willingham: Science and Education Blog

Potentially big win in addressing the achievement gap

7/11/2016

 
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds and students who are the first in their families to attend college are at heightened risk to leave school without a degree. It's not a matter of students coming to school inadequately prepared--something else is at work (e.g., Steele, 1997). It's not merely disheartening for these students, there can be potentially grave financial repercussions for dropping out. 

Most colleges and universities have programs meant to help students with the process of transitioning, and they often focus on practical skills like choosing classes and study strategies on the assumption that navigating academic life is a significant part of the problem.

In the last few years researchers have focused on a quite different approach: offering students a "lay theory" of the college experience. A lay theory is a set of beliefs that are used to interpret one's experiences. In the case of college, two beliefs have been flagged as especially important: that the transition to college inevitably involves setbacks, and that these setbacks are temporary.

College always includes disappointments, both academic and social. A student fails a test, or a callous professor tells them that their writing is beyond hope. (My freshman year of college an English professor wrote this as the entire comment on my exam essay: "No. D" Students get lonely, and have trouble making friends.  For students who grew up in families where it was always assumed that they would attend college, such disappointments are dispiriting, but not threatening. The student may even wonder if he or she belongs in college, but that doubt likely doesn't last. For a student who did not grow up in an environment where it was taken for granted that they would graduate college that doubt may persist. They may think that they are not smart enough to succeed, that they are "not college material," or that their cultural background is not compatible with college. 

Researchers have sought ways to instill a lay theory of college that would change that interpretation, focusing on two ideas: setbacks in college are common  (and therefore should not be taken as a sign that you don't belong) and setbacks are temporary (so things will get better). 

Researchers have had some success with this intervention in smaller experiments (Stephens et al, 2014; Walton & Cohen, 2011. Now a new study (Yeager et al, 2016) suggests that a simple, inexpensive intervention works at scale. 

Before they matriculated at college, students participated in an activity taking just 30 minutes, administered over the Internet. They were told that it was to help them think about the transition to college, and that they would have the chance to share their experiences, perhaps helping future students. 

There were three experimental conditions. The social belonging condition provided information showing that feeling out of place is common in the transition to college, but most students do make friends and succeed academically. The growth mindset condition provided information showing that intelligence is malleable, and that student can succeed with effort, coupled with effective strategies. The third condition combined both strategies. In each case, students were asked to write an essay about how the information they read might apply to them, as a way of cementing the information in memory, and to help them imagine making it applicable to their own experience.

One experiment targeted the entering class of a large public university. As shown in the table below, the intervention improved retention. All three of the intervention conditions were equally effective. 
Picture
Another experiment administered the intervention at a selective private university. The figure shows that disadvantaged students receiving the intervention earned higher GPAs in their first year of college 
Picture
Consistent with the theory, advantaged students don't benefit from the intervention; they already believe that they can succeed at college, and that they belong there, so their lay theory of college is likely already similar to the one described in the intervention.

Two things are noteworthy about this experiment. First, the reduction in the achievement gap is quite sizable, on the order of 30-40%. Second, this intervention was remarkably brief, and remarkably inexpensive. Obviously this work needs to be replicated and the interventions fine-tuned. (The growth mindset intervention didn't really work in Experiment 1.) But if this finding holds up, it must be counted as a huge success for social scientists, and for David Yeager and Greg Walton in particular. 
Acton Ace link
7/19/2016 07:12:25 am

Experiential education is when learners actively engage in activities or experiences. Students learn better when they are actively engaged in the learning process. Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is not interchangeable with experiential learning; however experiential learning is a sub-field and operates under the methodologies of experiential education. Experimental career education thus plays crucial role in students life. Mr Chris Salamone formerly served as a faculty member at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and served as a leadership curriculum adviser at The University of Central Oklahoma. Chris Salamone https://goo.gl/0NXy7v works to improve the lives of young people around the world through his many philanthropic endeavors. To this end, he functions as chairman of the Lead America Foundation and extends a considerable amount of financial support to fund the education of 300 children in Haiti


Comments are closed.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed


    Purpose

    The goal of this blog is to provide pointers to scientific findings that are applicable to education that I think ought to receive more attention.

    Archives

    April 2022
    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Skills
    Academic Achievement
    Academic Achievement
    Achievement Gap
    Adhd
    Aera
    Animal Subjects
    Attention
    Book Review
    Charter Schools
    Child Development
    Classroom Time
    College
    Consciousness
    Curriculum
    Data Trustworthiness
    Education Schools
    Emotion
    Equality
    Exercise
    Expertise
    Forfun
    Gaming
    Gender
    Grades
    Higher Ed
    Homework
    Instructional Materials
    Intelligence
    International Comparisons
    Interventions
    Low Achievement
    Math
    Memory
    Meta Analysis
    Meta-analysis
    Metacognition
    Morality
    Motor Skill
    Multitasking
    Music
    Neuroscience
    Obituaries
    Parents
    Perception
    Phonological Awareness
    Plagiarism
    Politics
    Poverty
    Preschool
    Principals
    Prior Knowledge
    Problem-solving
    Reading
    Research
    Science
    Self-concept
    Self Control
    Self-control
    Sleep
    Socioeconomic Status
    Spatial Skills
    Standardized Tests
    Stereotypes
    Stress
    Teacher Evaluation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Value-added
    Vocabulary
    Working Memory